The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition] Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00I11P2U8 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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From National Book Award finalist David I. Kertzer comes the gripping story of Pope Pius XI's secret relations with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. This groundbreaking work, based on seven years of research in the Vatican and Fascist archives, including reports from Mussolini's spies inside the highest levels of the Church, will forever change our understanding of the Vatican's role in the rise of Fascism in Europe.
The Pope and Mussolini tells the story of two men who came to power in 1922, and together changed the course of 20th-century history. In most respects, they could not have been more different. One was scholarly and devout, the other thuggish and profane. Yet Pius XI and "Il Duce" had many things in common. They shared a distrust of democracy and a visceral hatred of Communism. Both were prone to sudden fits of temper and were fiercely protective of the prerogatives of their office. ("We have many interests to protect," the Pope declared, soon after Mussolini seized control of the government in 1922.) Each relied on the other to consolidate his power and achieve his political goals.
In a challenge to the conventional history of this period, in which a heroic Church does battle with the Fascist regime, Kertzer shows how Pius XI played a crucial role in making Mussolini's dictatorship possible and keeping him in power. In exchange for Vatican support, Mussolini restored many of the privileges the Church had lost and gave in to the pope's demands that the police enforce Catholic morality. Yet in the last years of his life - as the Italian dictator grew ever closer to Hitler - the pontiff's faith in this treacherous bargain started to waver. With his health failing, he began to lash out at the Duce and threatened to denounce Mussolini's anti-Semitic racial laws before it was too late. Horrified by the threat to the Church-Fascist alliance, the Vatican's inner circle, including the future Pope Pius XII, struggled t...
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- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 14 hours and 11 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Random House Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: January 28, 2014
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00I11P2U8
I heard Mr. Kertzer speak in DC a few nights ago, purchased the book, and read it right through in just a couple of days. It is a gripping, well-told, well-documented and largely appalling story that should be read by anybody interested in the origins of World War II and in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Pius XI and Mussolini each had their own reasons for supporting each other, but in the end it was a disaster for everybody concerned. The Pope was blinded by his own lust to regain the stranglehold he once had over the Italian people, a dominance which was lost once the Papal States were absorbed into a united Italy in 1870. He and the rest of the hierarchy were obsessed with the supposed dangers of democracy, Protestantism, separation of church and state, the imaginary world-wide Jewish Conspiracy that somehow controlled both Communism and Capitalism, freedom of thought and association, Freemasonry, etc. etc. and were more than eager to let a ruthless totalitarian state help the Catholic Church regain its old glories. Mussolini, for his part, needed the visible backing of the Vatican to maintain the loyalty of Italy's Catholic faithful. Kertzer's book fully describes the rise and fall of this unholy alliance.
Though the author spent seven years in research for this book through previously secret records from the Vatican and other sources, I am amazed by just how much of the sordid story has been a part of the public record all along. If there has been controversy among historians and others over just how much support the Vatican provided Mussolini, much of it must be because of a refusal in some quarters to admit the all-too-real fallibility of the political judgments of the Catholic Church.
I would highly recommend Dr. Kertzer's fine work, The Pope and Mussolini. This book is meticulously researched and documented and, at the same time, so well written that it reads like a novel and brings the reader into the scenes as if one were there.
As a clinical psychologist, the personality dynamics of the major figures were of particular interest. Dr. Kertzer's thorough research allowed for a detailed look at both Pope Pius XI and Mussolini. Although very different in important respects, they shared a number of personality features that limited their effectiveness and blinded them to certain aspects of their collaboration together.
They each had an overly confident reading of what they could achieve by working with each other. It resulted in an operating style of "the ends justify the means." They each required excessive admiration and had little tolerance for criticism. This limited their ability to really profit from consultation with others and affected their choices of who would be the best individuals to advise them. Each may also have had a tendency to idealize, and then devalue certain individuals – the pope, at first, characterized Mussolini as "a man from Providence," then eventually came to view him as a shortsighted stooge of Hitler.
Of course, these are only a few of their personality characteristics and these features cannot fully define each of these individuals. They were each more complicated than this. Dr. Kertzer gives us a much more complete portrait of each of these figures. He also broadens the canvas with relevant and interesting historical context. Important information about supporting figures such as Eugenio Pacelli, who would become the next pope, is also woven into this excellent narrative.
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